Apuleius Books

She seemed to have been born of the sun. Her hair shone; her face shone as well. Her skin was as bright as the day, her bosom as warm as polished rocks in the summer sun. She lived in the land of the Divine where there is neither illness nor accident and where even old animals play all day, mindful only of the now and caring no more about tomorrow than a kitten does.
But one day she was called, for she was needed. As the sun descended toward the western hills she left that land of constant joy and no tomorrow. She walked slowly at first, then hurried toward the hills behind which the sun soon dropped. The rocks had lost their shine and were cold. The hills became dark and undefined. The grass beneath the girl’s feet was still soft but no longer warm and only darkness was in the sky behind her.
She walked into the darkening hills more quickly than one really can, save in dreams. She walked all night unafraid of anything, for nothing could or would have wished to harm the child of day. Night’s terrors bowed as they sought a glimpse of her. Cougars purred at her approach for she was beautiful, and wolves ran to lick her hand for she was good. She had lost nothing of the radiance of the day and she passed through the night like a torch moving on the hills. At dawn the terrors would still feel warmed by her passing and greet the day with lighter hearts.
At last the girl saw where she had been summoned to. It was a little house between two of the hills with a single candle lighting the window of one room. There was a stone chimney which smoked a little, laying a lazy haze in the still air about the place. She could see it all for the moon had risen. Full in the sky above, it lit the cabin as though it had no other work that night. Perhaps it hadn’t for the pines that rose all about the house were as dark as they had been before its rising.
She approached that window lighted by a candle. How poorly the pane reflected her beauty. Yet the flame leapt at sight of her as though in joy; as though the girl was the mother of the tiny flame and it sought to reach up to her as an infant to its mother. She peered inside. There lay a child under a coverlet embroidered with wildflowers. The boy was not asleep. His eyes were closed, but in fear, not rest. He did not know why. This night was no different from other nights, the day had been no more troublesome than other days. Tomorrow would be no different either, he told himself as he tried to fall into sleep. Somehow he knew that was not true and in fear he awaited the messenger he sensed would come.
There was a knock. It was not the fearsome knock that he expected but only a tiny rapping as though to tell him not to fear. Then she stood by his bed and the room brightened. The single candle shone with the brightness of a rich man’s candelabra or the lamps of many windings that hung in the church far down in the valley where the child prayed each Sunday.
“Do not be afraid, Joseph. I do not bring pain. I am your friend death.”

      HOPE

Beth Allen stopped for coffee; not at Starbucks for she really didn’t care to socialize this morning. She just wanted coffee and a little time to think. Outside, the morning air had been cold and she still felt a few quick shivers. That seemed all too natural, for the recent days had all been gloomy and cold and depressing. She tried to blame that for her own depression but she knew that there was much more to it than that. Mainly, she just felt dead inside. The dreams of her young adulthood had been melting behind her advancing years like the slush which always covered the city streets just before spring. Ah spring; perhaps she would feel better in a month or two when the world would come alive again. Of course that might take a while longer in the city than in the country. A dull cold hung longer here in the dull air between the dull apartment buildings of Amsterdam Avenue. For just a moment Beth thought of how much prettier it could be just a couple of blocks away, beside the Hudson. There was an ice free channel with barges on the river and on a clear day the Hudson could be pretty in winter; but this wasn’t a clear day. It was gray and cold, and doubtless windy so close to the river.

Beth found a quiet little table in a quiet little corner. A young man came over to take her order. Probably an actor too, she thought. He didn’t smile at her pretty face and his feet hardly touched the floor. No, perhaps he’s a dancer. “Plain coffee, black.” No, not espresso; not anything with an Italian or pseudo European name. “Just coffee – please. OK, with a cheese danish.” When she wasn’t acting, which was most of the time, Beth was a model. Not fashion though. She did ads and some girlie stuff and it paid the rent. However she didn’t feel like watching her figure this morning. Why should I?

At least the windows of the coffee shop were clean but the nearby buildings were old. She began musing on what it must have been like to live here when her grand folks had. Maybe not so different. Dirtier certainly with coal fired furnaces belching all over the city and from Jersey across the river., but were people back then more accustomed to the damn cold? Surely they were poorer but at least their fewer clothes were real wool and cotton and a lady’s dress far longer.

Her grandma had been named Beth too. It was a name that had been passed on for at least five generations. Surely it must have been something different in the old country but had been chosen here for its very American sound. She was Beth the fifth, Paganne. The Beth remained though marriages had changed the family names. Beth Paganne? What was the origin of Paganne? Her folks had never said much about it save an occasional joke about Scottish kings somewhere way back. Probably they didn’t know much about it either. However, her mother had let one piece of information about the Beths slip. Beth III had also been a model and her family name had been Schierloh, a good old German name so she knew that her ancestry wasn’t purely Scottish. There were a few black and white photos of her which Beth V had inherited. She was not modeling in them however, just posing for family snaps taken, her mom had said, with a box Brownie which must have been old style even in the nineteen fifties.

Beth V finished her coffee and danish and went into the cold mean street. Yeah, there was still a bit of the forties and fifties, and even the thirties about the neighborhood, even an old Chesterfield ad on the side of one apartment building, exposed when the neighboring parking garage had been demolished and a sad little park built. It wasn’t a real park, just one of the little hippie neighborhood parks so beloved of the city’s one-time mayor John Lindsay. Hippies? The love generation? Beth IV, her mom, had always put on a rather sad and disappointed look when the subject came up. “The love generation? No way. Gas, ass, or grass; no one rode for free.”

Despite Beth’s intent to stay warm she found herself drawn to the Hudson. Just for a moment, a quick look, she thought, knowing full well that she would linger there in the cold a bit longer than intended. Her first sight of the river was just ice, an undefined gray sheet of it far down fifty eighth street. She hurried, for the air was cold. Why am I doing this? Beth asked herself. It’s cold. It’s mean. The river will still be there tomorrow. But will I?

Will I? What a damned depressing thought. Beth pulled her coat more tightly around her and wished that she had a scarf to keep her head warm like Beth III had in one of the old photos she’d been thinking about. She knew that it had been taken somewhere nearby. The scene was nearly entirely different of course. but one of the buildings seemed recognizable, and on this gray day nearly as monochromatic as in the old snap. In her mind’s eye Beth III was still there. She would still be there so long as the photo resided safe in the possession of some Beth. She took a certain pleasure in that thought and taking out her android she set its timer. Then Beth V posed as nearly as possible like her namesake grandma had.

Enough nostalgia. It was time to get out of the cold. It was time for another coffee. Maybe drink it in some dead dark old church. But then what? By eight the sun had begun to disperse the gray, and the wide Hudson ice was pastel shades of pinks and pale gold in the morning glow. That’s better, she thought; and almost reluctantly letting go of her comfortable gloom she turned her back to the now sunlit river. Spring will be coming in a month or two. With that thought – almost against her will – hope in tomorrow was returning too.

There will be work, good jobs. Maybe a part off Broadway. Screw my figure.

This fine morning she would have a cookie with the coffee.

The sun had just risen when Sir Halfren rode out of the woods and into a large field of grain, yellow – almost golden – in the sun. Across the field was a building of some sort and he hurried his horse toward it. From the front it had the aspect of a chapel though it bore no cross and had no belfry. As he neared the building he could see that it was quite long. The walls were of a light stone color and all about it was a garden.
Near the door he dismounted. By now the sun was high enough to glint off many panes of glass. They were not the stained glass of a chapel but what seemed glass so clear that the whole inside of the building must be flooded with sunlight. He reached for a large iron ring that hung on the door and knocked. Almost immediately, as though his coming had been expected, the door was opened by a young woman. She said nothing but looked at him as though she knew the knight and had known him all his years. Her hair was obviously long but had been caught up to encircle her head in a style not of the knight’s century, and her gown – all dark red velvet and white lace – hugged her in a soft embrace. Her feet were bare.
Then the lady smiled and that smile lit the doorway like a lamp of unimagined brightness. She laughed a light laugh and motioned Halfren to enter. Nor was it a slight and perfunctory gesture. Gaily she swung her whole forearm in a wide arc, her hand fluttering in welcome. “Come in, come in … Come in Sir Halfren. I’ve been expecting you for long ages, “
Halfren was confused, yet the welcome was so warm and joyous that there certainly could be nothing but good inside. He was amazed to find the the building’s inside far larger even that he had expected. It was at least three hundred feet long and divided in two by an inside wall running most of its length. Halfren could not observe the space to the right of this divider but its entire length was to be seen on the left. The whole interior was at least thirty feet high with window walls of beveled glass panes that rose from floor to ceiling and illuminated everything in a way no other building of his century could be lit. The floor was polished granite which supported occasional verde and porphyry columns that rose to the distant ceiling. Its warm teakwood was coffered and from some of the coffers a row of unlit chandeliers ran the length of the room. The central wall was of a pleasant cream shade and bore both gilded mirrors and occasional wooden shelves of various lengths and at several heights. On these were decorations from centuries past, collected, Halfren assumed, by a wealthy owner. There were ship models, portraits and statuary, ceramics, and some pictures which seemed too accurate to have been painted by human hands. The smiling lady looked at Halfren, at the pictures, and then at Halfren again: ”They are called photographs and are from the future.”
‘That cannot be,” Halfren heard himself saying, while knowing that what the lady said was true. Then she must be a witch, he thought but knew that to not be so. The lady and the whole room were far too beautiful and – yes, innocent. He felt warm hands on his shoulders, warm breath on his neck and in his breast his heart jumped with visions of joy without end. He knew that he should be afraid, that he should cross himself and pray; but to whom? God was right here in this calm and beautiful hall.
“You cannot understand. I am God’s only creation in this universe. All else I have imagined. Now I have thought of you and so you are.”
“You’re saying that you have only made me up. No. I am. I assure you: I am not a dream.”
“Of course you are, Halfren, and you always will be whenever I think of you; just as my friends of 1910 are always with me. Those that are not with me are only those whom my friends have thought up. Those are just paper images to me without depth and I care not about them. But, Sir knight, I do care for you.
As she said these words her whole look changed. Halfren saw that her pretty feet were now shod in high laced sandals such as he had never even imagined. When he lifted his eyes the lady was clothed in a white blouse with a high neck and long sleeves. A black ribbon encircled her neck and another her waist. She had let her hair fall to her shoulders. Her skirt was full and swung like a bell.
“Do you like this, Halfren? Or would you rather I was less demure? I can be that too. I have only to think of some tight leather or tiny short skirt. Would you like that Halfren? Somehow several glass panes had opened and a breeze swept through the room. Through the glass Halfren could see bushels of leaves, caught by the same breeze, blowing through the garden.
“Hello again! I’ve been gone and am returned. Of all my friends only you will be able to understand this. I know you will because I have imagined that you can. But I give you that choice. If you choose to understand you will have no need of paper people. This is the first time that I have ever asked anyone for anything. Will you give me your understanding, Sir knight?”
“What is on he other side of this wall,” the knight asked almost in fear. Sir Halfren did not fear any man, even the king with his castles and their dungeons; but now he knew that he did fear the unknown.
“Why nothing evil,” the lady said and her smile lit the dark side of the wall as they passed to the other side. Here instead of tall windows to let in the sun there was a wall of mirrors, one after another, perhaps twenty, As the lady led Halfren past them the warm glow of her smile lit each in turn and Halfren thought for a moment to flee the place and put as many miles as possible between it and reality. But only for a moment. How could any of this be evil? Halfren watched himself in each mirror that he passed then stopped midway down the line, for his image in one seemed different. He looked younger, and as he looked he began to see far in the distance the simple hut of a holy man; a man he had known when young.
“Come with me, Halfren.” The lady spoke in a firm but warm voice.
“I should know your name.”
“Call me Mara, sir knight.”
Halfren followed Mara past several more mirrors until she stopped in front of one which seemed somehow different. It took him a moment to realize that it was not a mirror at all for he was not reflected in it. But then it was not a window either. In it he saw clouds passing beneath him.
“Do you dare enter your future, sir Halfren.”
Halfren did not answer. He could hardly believe it himself, but he felt no fear in the lady’s presence. He stepped though the “mirror” and with him so too did Mara. He expected to fall to earth. Why that did not frighten him Halfren did not know. But that was not what happened. A cloud enveloped him and as he passed out of its mist he found himself beside Mara, standing on a hillside with the dawn breaking.
Halfren looked around him. He did not recognize the place. The landscape was unreal. It was like that in a painting. He could see a village and there was a road to it. On the road he saw a small group pf mounted men. Their dress was from the east and they spoke among themselves in a language that he should not have understood, but did.
“Pompey will end piracy in the east; then it will be safe to go again.”
“Pompey?” Halfren heard himself repeat. Pompey had lived six hundred years before. Mara just looked at him wanting to see the reaction in his face.
“Yes; six hundred years before your time.” Mara looked serious as she examined Halfren’s face. Could he understand? Would he even want to understand? “Time is a tapestry, Mi-lord Halfren; and we are looking at it without constraints of time.”
“But Mara…” Halfren felt uncomfortable addressing her in so familiar a way, but he did. “Mara, Who are these men? It seems that I know them.”
“Of course. If you did not know them they would not be. Now you think you imagine them. No. They are as real as you and me for they are you and me. Let us join them.”
Of a sudden Halfren was walking the road and as in a dream he and Mara were beside the men more quickly then was possible. Yet the men did not seem to see them.
“I told you it is as though we were watching a tapestry. Would you want to see these men when they were children? Look they are playing at ball.”
Sir Halfren saw the children but the older forms at the same time until his attention was drawn to the road and the village for a moment and when he looked back all were gone except Mara, the one constant in this world of fleeting images. They began again to walk the road. They walked toward the village but never reached it.
“Because you do not want o reach it, sir knight.”
“You said I’d see my future, but those men were in the past.”
“Future, past. They are the same. I told you that time is a tapestry. One person follows another. First they bath and dress, then mount horses to go to battle. Then there is the fight and a victory celebration. But to you and me watching it is all one… As it is to God and to the dead.”
When Halfren looked again at the road it was gone, and the village too. He and Mara were standing outside the mirror again.”
“It is your choice, My dear…. May I call you that? There is the door through which you entered but be warned, if you leave there will be nothing left of this place. It is where I am and I will not be here.”
They had walked past all the windows and stood again by the door, now in the full blaze of the sunlight which broke into rainbow colors when it struck the bevels in the room of many windows. Mara was no longer smiling; her expression was quizzical. Her hair streamed behind her as though in a breeze.
“Then I will not be.”
“You are my dream, Halfren, and my dream does not know anything of now and later and the past. You will always be to me, but only as you were and as you are now. But would you rather know my other friends. I offer you this, and I offer it only to you. They are my thoughts and dreams but to you alone I offer it, to be one with me.”
The lady still looked serious, almost worried. None others in her mind had ever had choice. They were what she saw.
Halfren dropped to one knee and offered his gage to her.
____________________

Nothing there is but the mirages of God; and in one mirage is a lady. In her thoughts are time and eternity with lands and people and good and bad, and a man to share it.

Joseph was dead. He knew it because he was alone. Alone in a way he had never been in life. Before he could even look to see if he was in heaven or hell he was overwhelmed by a loneliness that he knew would never end. When he recovered, or to be more exact when he passed beyond that feeling, he looked about to see where he was. Would this to be his eternity? There was nothing to see, no clouds of heavenly peace but no lake of fire either. There was nothing, just loneliness. So was this to be his eternity or just the slow end of physical consciousness?

For awhile he did have memory. Somewhere deep in his childhood he had been here before. Well not exactly here. Here there was no dimension at all. Perhaps he was within a white cloud or mist. Joseph knew the horror of white for In his childhood he had dreamed of being alone in a long white corridor, a corridor without end with nondescript doors spaced evenly on either side. When he came to one just like all the others he had somehow known that this one was his. He had opened the door. Inside there was nothing but an empty room with white walls, white floor, and white ceiling. There was not even a window or a lamp. The room was its own eternal white light, Here he would spend eternity, an eternity without distraction, without things.

That dream had been the great loneliness. Now at the other end of life he was there again. There would be no future, only an eternal now. His only thought was that there was nothing to think about. Even his memories were beginning to slip away. Everything he had known a few moments before was slipping away. Or was that a few moments ago, or a month, a year, ever? Had anything ever happened.

Joseph was alone without past or future, or purpose or dreams.

Terri closed her mother’s door as quietly as she could. Mamma was sick…very sick…and had been for many months now. She went to her own room, just down the hall from Mamma’s sick room, from which she could hear if Mamma woke up coughing, or was moaning, or even talking very quietly to herself as she sometimes did very late at night when she thought that everyone else was asleep. Or was Mamma talking to God, as Terri sometimes imagined? That thought might have given the child comfort but it didn’t. Terri knew what she did not want to know. In her heart she knew what she would not say even to herself: that Mamma was dying.
She tried to sleep. How can a child sleep knowing what she knew? Some people would think that Terri would be frightened at losing her Mother. That was not it. For perhaps the first time in her life Terri’s thoughts were not at all for herself or even for her loss, but only for her mother and her daddy.
Sleep came very slowly that night, more slowly by far than the tears that Terri would not let flow lest she lose control of herself and hurt inside even more than she hurt now. Besides, Terri told herself, Mamma might hear. If Mamma heard, than her mother would be even more sad. Terri would not do that to her. But at last, the child did sleep just a little, waking up with every strange sound in the house. Deep in sadness, Terri did not know whether to pray to God or not, for God was taking her mother from her…To a better place, the Reverend would say. For the first time in her young life Terri had to worry if the minister was right. How can anyone be sure what happens after someone dies?
“Terri!” a voice called gently and the girl opened her eyes just a little because it was so small a voice that she wasn’t quite sure she wasn’t imagining it, especially since it seemed so near even though so very faint.
“Terri.” In the dark the child thought she felt a hand…her mother’s hand…gently stroking her hair back from her eyes and touching her cheek. “You must sleep. You need sleep, Terri. You will have a very busy day tomorrow and must wake up early.”

“Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry,
Go to sleepy little baby.
When you wake, you’ll have cake,
And all the pretty little horses.”

Her mother’s voice though faint and gentle, was also strong. Terri thought it very strange that she was closing her eyes again with her head in her mother’s hand, for Mamma was in her own room down the hall.
In the sky above her bed the stars were brighter than ever she
had seen them. It was as though she were in the desert. It was like the starry sky over Bethlehem on Christmas cards that had come in the mail to her mother every year from her many friends in places far away; friends who always thought of her at that time of year. There was not a sound from the room down the hall.
So it was that Terri finally found sleep in the arms of her mother. She never told anyone about the “dream” for she knew that it had not been a dream. Death does not come, as people often say. A good person goes to it when that person sees it, for it is as natural as getting out of her sick bed when she has regained her strength; not to leave, but to go to her child’s room and soothe her baby with a lullaby, a lullaby that she will always sing to her when the grown child needs it all the hard days of her life.

“Behind the glittering plate-glass windows of the present lies the mystic, stained glass past. Like the silver in an old mirror, it gleams fitfully when the light strikes it right.”

William Manchester

Old mirrors; one can barely use the things. Why does Momma keep the one in the hall, the one kept out of the way where no one will notice the shoddy thing? I suppose once it had been pretty; maybe too ornate for our taste today, but pretty in its way.
The young man bestirred himself from his bed to go into the hall and examine his mother’s keepsake mirror. The glass was streaked and some of the wood veneer had long since fallen off, Some other bits were just hanging on, more by inertia than by the cracked glue. Some of the silvering was entirely missing at the mirror’s beveled edges.
The old thing was long and narrow, intended to hang over some other long-gone piece of furniture. Tom knew how it had been acquired. Some friend of his Dad had given it to them when he’d moved to California. He knew that in those days his parents had little to furnish their first apartment with. The mirror had been old even then but still serviceable. Twenty years in their present dry and overheated house had finished off the work of decay that had no doubt been eating under bits of veneer for decades before. It might have been pretty in the apartment; Tom couldn’t know. He’d been just a baby and had no recollection of the apartment.
His mother had been pretty then too. For a moment Tom imagined her reflection in a corner of the mirror; not her as she was now — still nice looking in a mature way but hardly cute – but as the pretty girl in the short-shorts that Dad kept on his desk. Then the figure was gone. It had just been a rainbow aberration where the afternoon sun struck the bevel. Still, he’d keep it for awhile more.

Old Mister Twilling lived on a hill. He was quite old; so old that he hated the coming of winter. His days of skiing and skating were long past and winter was just cold and snowy. The only really good thing in his life now was Old Furface, his beloved pussycat. They had been together – just the two of them – growing old together for many years. Sometimes he would just watch her in the evening while something soft played on the radio. He liked to watch how her green eyes would slowly close when she sat on the window sill as though lost in meditation or prayer.
But for him there were chores that had to be done. He had to shop for food and he sometimes had to visit his doctor. But how could he do that if it snowed? He had to drive, but he couldn’t drive unless he shoveled the snow from his driveway and it was cold outside and windy; On cold, windy, snowy days he just wanted to lie in his nice warm bed like his cat.
Oh, Mister Twilling thought, I forgot, we need cat food. I must get some tomorrow.
But that night it snowed and to make matters worse the county snow plow came past on the road and piled even more snow at the foot of Mister twilling’s driveway.
The cat looked at him. It wanted breakfast. So Mister Twilling got out of his nice warm bed. He would have to shovel the snow from his driveway and go to the store for cat food. But when he looked out the window he saw that the snow had already been shoveled from his drive. No neighbor could have done it because Mister Twilling lived on top of the hill, far away from his nearest neighbor.
Who would have done that, he wondered? But there was no one around so all that Mister Twilling could do was to be grateful and happy. He put on his warm coat and hat and told Furface to be good and wait for him. He would go to the store for cat food. And he did.
The next week it snowed again at night, and again Mister Twilling had to go to the store because there was very little to eat in the house. When he got up, sure enough, the driveway was clean. Fairies, he thought, or maybe elves did it. So he went to the store and told everyone there of how faeries or elves had shoveled his snow away. They just smiled and thought he was kidding because no one believes in fairies anymore.
The weather report was for more snow that night and Mr. Twilling decided to wait up in the dark and see who it was who shoveled the snow that would pile up on the driveway. By midnight the storm had grown fierce. He tried to look from his window to see how much snow had fallen but the wind was so strong that the snow was just a blur. Mr Twilling returned to his chair by the nice warm wood fire still wondering if the snow would be cleared this night as it had been before. Now the trouble with sitting in a nice soft chair by a nice warm fire is that one falls asleep. Mr. Twilling had not wanted to fall asleep, he just did. He did not notice how, about three in the morning, the wind finally quit its howling and the snow stopped falling and piling up outside his door. He did not see that only the path from his front door to the road was clear, nor how everything but his car was covered in eight inches of snow; nor that Furface was sitting on the window ledge and licking a bit of moisture from her fur.

It was a Christmas eve but not a Christmas card one. There were plenty of colored lights but mostly they’d just been hung without any imagination. It was not cheerful. Night was coming on and Johanna slipped into a deep doorway to get out of the wind for just a moment. She intended to continue when the cold blasts might briefly let up. The doorway was of a small shop in Brooklyn; one of those dingy little places from the twenties or thirties with an address on the transom, Now it was 1963.

There was a little light inside and Johanna could see a clerk fumbling over something at his counter, not even noticing that she was on his doorstep. The display window was nearly empty. There was a lot of dust and a few nondescript books that looked like they had been there forever. Perhaps they had been. Probably a bookie shop, she thought, not intending the pun. Not that it mattered to her. Sure, it was sad that people wasted their kids’ milk money on the horses, but no more so than those addicted to heroin or alcohol. The guy inside finished wrapping something then finally noticed her. He didn’t seem to care though. He took his package and disappeared into a backroom. Johanna still had five blocks to walk and she had better do it quickly, before darkness. Besides, while the doorway gave some shelter from the wind it could not help the temperature which had been falling throughout the day. Out she stepped into the north wind which now blew sleet like flakes of rain into her face. Not yet cold enough to snow, Johanna thought. Just wet and mean.

She tried to hurry but there were slick spots on the sidewalk and she was wearing heels. She should have put on rubber boots that day. She’d foregone the boots, her leg warmers, warm wool pants, and a parka, in favor of the heels which were now giving her trouble, a skirt, and a short tight jacket. That might have been enough at noon before the cold set in, and the north wind, and the sleet, but not now that the sun was setting.

Damn! Five blocks, four in a moment. Damn wind. Damn north wind. No. I must never damn the north wind. North Wind had been Johanna’s favorite book character when she’d been much younger, just nine years old or thereabouts. George McDonald’s North Wind had appeared to a little boy in the form of a wondrous comforting spirit. Johanna’s had read the story over and over and North Wind had become her companion when no one else had wanted to be; when her mom had died and her Dad had disappeared, and she’d gone to live with an aunt who didn’t want her. Of course that was before she’d bloomed. Afterward, every boy she met had wanted to be her friend.

I was such a child, she thought, remembering how she had prayed in a church before a statue of the Virgin Mary. But it had not been the Virgin to whom she had prayed. It had been to her friend North Wind; and North Wind had given her guidance. Be nice to the boys even the clods and nerds but stay away from guys in bars. There was no doubt in her mind where that thought had come from; she was not even old enough to go to a bar. It was not her own thought, for sure it had come from the kind North Wind.

Of course Johanna knew that the whole fantasy was a silliness; but it was her silliness and she’d keep it close to her. She’d once been a pretty young lady with a nice front and an enormous rear. With these she’d made a living off the guys in bars that she’d been warned against. Now the only thing she wanted was to give it all up and be safe and secure again in the arms of North Wind. She had grown up more than she liked and was in her thirties. Sometimes she wished she hadn’t; and if this was North Wind blowing sleet in her face because she’d not obeyed her advice then she must submit. There was surely a good reason for it.

Three blocks to go. The street lights were coming on. Soon other working girls would be out too. Competition but also companionship and safety. They’d been times; there had been dates and parties that had turned nasty. Safe was important. They watched each others backs when one of them “went out” with a new guy. but they still had to play whatever the guys and the weather.

Finally she reached her street. Johanna had a small apartment over a fabric store. It was nothing special; just a little living room, an alcove for her bed, a kitchenette, and an even smaller bath with just a shower, there being too little room for a tub. But that would feel like heaven tonight. She could shower off the chill, change into something dry, and warm up last night’s spaghetti before having to go and earn a living.

This time Johanna did dress warmly. The guys wouldn’t that much care. A blow job was a blow job on a night like this. On a night like this; Johanna thought of what night it was: Christmas Eve. The bars would be full of men with no better place to be. Maybe she’d find a nice one. One of whom North Wind would approve. Not likely in a bar though. The tall lady, the considerate spirit, had warned her of men in bars. Now she lived off of them and their neediness. What else was I to do, North Wind?

When Johanna left her apartment the rain had turned into a sleet-snow mixture such as makes New York a lousy place to be in winter, even on Christmas eve. But at least she had an apartment now. The previous year she’d sought warmth in a church on Christmas eve. She’d wanted to be warm and comfortable with her friend North Wind’s statue. But all the “nice” families had looked at her when she came in. She didn’t have a long woolen coat. She hadn’t had a hat. Her dress was too short and her handbag too big. She’d been wearing high boots that nearly disappeared under the skirt. She hadn’t stayed and when she left an usher had looked at her with an expression that was a combination of pity and disgust as he held the door. There would also be warmth in a bar down the street even if the Christmas cheerfulness was hollow.

____________________

Thomas was horny. An after hours holiday drunkfest at the school where he taught had made him half sick too. But whotthehell. Take a few aspirin and hope to avoid a headache in the morning. There was nothing to be done for the rest, the fog and weakness, the dryness, the need for a drink in the morning to clear his mind.

He got an hour sleep but was then awake again. Go out and find some ass, Feel the night air at least. He left his apartment and wandered into the sleety night. There was a girl. She was past the age for tight pants. Really broad in the butt, and probably wears a rubber panty-girdle…. But she didn’t look wrecked yet.

“Outside the barracks,

By the corner light,

I’ll always stand and wait for you at night.

We will create a world for two

I’ll wait for you the whole night through…

For you Lili Marlene… For you Lili Marlene.”

In a few hours it would be Christmas. He’d be able to sleep late in the morning. He was forty-three; feeling a little old and getting cold. One more day and the stupid so-called Christmas music will be replaced with even sillier New Year’s stuff.

“Surely tomorrow you’ll feel blue,

But then will come a love that’s new.

For you, Lili Marlene… For you Lili Marlene.”

Tom stopped in the shadows cast by a tree and such a street lamp, but this one was outside a closed liquor store and the song that was rolling around the back of his mind was from long, long ago when the world had seemed a more romantic place.

He watched the girl. She was of average height and looked to be in her late thirties, just a little worn looking. Business was probably getting irregular. A wide belt above a grand ass drew her waist smaller than natural for someone her age. Eventually she saw him waiting but made no motion to acknowledge it. Instead she adjusted the strap of a huge handbag that hung over one shoulder and moved off down the street in the opposite direction, abandoning her whore-pace for a half-block, then turning in the relative lightness of another lamp to see if he were following.

But Tom was not following. As usual he was drawn between glands and loneliness on the one side and worry and disgust on the other. Drunken sex with a whore that he didn’t even know was unlikely to be a lively affair. Likely it would be pretty mechanical. It could turn out about as friendly as a purchase from a news dealer, but for the price of a show. Should he take the chance that the next half hour could be worth thirty bucks? Nice ass though. I’ll bet her friends call her Big Butt. That thought improved Tom’s mood a bit.

A car came slowly down the street close to the curb. The two young guys inside looked to be joking with each other and their “music” was something loud, throbbing with base, and annoying. Big-butt saw them and without much decision moved a bit closer to the curb.

“Hey Cunt! Aren’t you kind of old for whoring?”

The car sped up. One of the boys whistled a shriek to his world, and laughing, was gone. The girl just bitched “bastards” to no one in particular and started walking back to where Tom had first seen her. Her head wasn’t hanging but her face was blank. The street was empty and ugly despite the holiday decorations. He considered that perhaps she had become impassive to insult. But the childish assholes in the car had decided him. It was Christmas Eve and he was seeing someone as lonely as himself and he’d feel better about himself if she did too. They could at least share their loneliness. He walked directly toward the girl. She didn’t move or change her expression. If she made any gesture toward him it could be termed soliciting. Tom knew that he had to approach her. At least there was no chance of mistaking this whore for someone waiting for a bus.

“Assholes!” he said. She didn’t answer. “Are you working?”

“What have you in mind?” She still showed no expression.

“I want to fuck.”

“Well, you are blunt. Thirty bucks. Have you a place or should we just find somewhere dark?”

“I’ve a place.” Tom took her hand to lead her. For a moment the hand stiffened and he looked her straight in the eyes. They stood looking at each other for just a moment, evaluating each other. It must be admitted that Tom was thinking of diseases, filth, gossip, and self-esteem. He didn’t want to hold that hand; he just wanted to fuck… with protection. He was holding it for her. Then she decided. Her hand relaxed just a little. He thought her face softened just a bit too and they began to walk together.

“Is it far?”

“Just around the corner.”

“Do you want to go in first, alone? I can follow in a few minutes.”

“No. You’re my date for tonight,” he joked, and the whore smiled just a little.

Tom’s apartment was not some sparse bachelor pad. He had his pleasures and not all of them involved his teaching or drinking or sex. He could afford it because the place was rent controlled by the city. It was a palace for a high school history teacher living alone in New York. It had been laid out as a railroad flat with narrow rooms running front to back. Besides the tiny and very dated kitchenette and bathroom in the rear, there were three main rooms. The largest served as a living/dining area that looked out on Flatbush Avenue, There was another, smaller, room that Tom rather grandly termed his study or library, and through it one entered his bedroom. Each room was furnished appropriately, the living/dining area was quite attractive in a beatnik way with some nearly antique tables, chairs, and lamps. What had once been a working fireplace now housed a white porcelain Siamese cat two feet high. On the mantle was a beer stein from college, a green vase bought at an antique store in Connecticut, and his family pictures; plus a precious little blue box that contained his departed mom’s engagement and wedding rings.

The door to the library was open and beyond it was the bedroom. The whore looked about the living room for a trinket to detach when she would leave. She saw the box but Thomas poured them drinks and her attention was diverted.

“You have a lot of books. Are you a professor?

“No. I just like to read a lot, mostly history.” Thomas knew better than to begin a deep conversation but Big-Butt went into the library and began looking his books over. She did not touch any, just looked. Then she came back and took the scotch that Tom held out.”

“Are you in a hurry?” Big-Butt found herself asking.

“Not unless you are.”

“It’s crappy outside. … I liked history in school. Can I borrow one of your books?”

That’s the last I’ll see of it, Tom thought. “Which one?”

Butt walked back to the shelves and drew down Henri Pirenne’s classic Mohammed and Charlemagne. At least it was one which could easily be replaced if he never got it back.

“Sure you can borrow it but you might find it boring.” Tom mentally slapped himself for the unintended insult.

“No, Pirenne was a very convincing writer. It’s too bad so many good historians lack his style.”

The teacher was totally floored; put in his place by a streetwalker. But why not? Two weeks ago he’d been telling his students that if they couldn’t work at what they liked that didn’t mean having to give the thing up entirely. “You’ve read Pirenne?”

“My history teacher wanted me to try college. He gave me a little book on the Pirenne thesis. It had excerpts from Mohammed and Charlemagne and from some other books by guys who didn’t agree with him. I might like to read the whole thing. I’ve sort’a gotten out of practice of reading serious things.

“OK.” Tom was in a new mood. “Here, if you like medieval history you might like this too.” He took down C. D. Burns’ The First Europe and handed it to the girl who browsed the text briefly.

“No. Let me borrow Pirenne. I’ll take the other one when I bring this back.” She put Pirenne’s masterpiece carefully into the enormous satchel that she carried. Full of God-knows-what, Tom thought. Then she disappeared into the bathroom leaving the door barely ajar. Tom was a little nervous. He knew that you should never bring a street-girl home or let her know where you live. It wasn’t safe. There was a flush and then the sink faucet ran for a long time. When she came out Butt was wearing only her panties. They weren’t rubber but rather a nice knit thong. Tom had also stripped and she took him by the cock and lead him to the bed.

“What’s your name?”

“Johanna. What’s yours? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Tom”

The cold rain / snow mix continued and Butt allowed herself to be convinced to stay for another drink then to climb into bed a second time, this time to rest a little before she’d have to leave. “Would you like me to come back later?”

“I can’t afford it.”

“Do you do Christmas?”

“Not much lately. I did when I was a kid.

“Me too. Do you miss it?

“I suppose. You?”

“It’s not midnight yet, not Christmas yet.” Johanna went to the bathroom again. Trips to the bathroom were a good time to pick up trinkets. The guy would usually leave her alone then. She went to the living room to get her bag. That box on the mantle was pretty and might contain something valuable.

Returning she asked: “Did you enjoy?” rather more seriously than Tommy expected.

“Yes.”

“Will I see you again?”

“I need my book back.” They smiled at each other and Tom got off the bed and led her out the door.

Alone, he set a pot of coffee brewing. He was very tired and still a little sick from lack of sleep and all the booze he’d had that night. Now the coffee would keep him awake. He poured a mugful anyway and returned to his living area, picking up The First Europe from where the girl had left it on the mantelpiece. For a moment a suspicion jolted him but a quick shake of the blue box confirmed that his mother’s rings were still there.

There was a knock. It was Johanna again. “It’s really mean outside. There’s a church down the street. Would you like to do Christmas?”

____________________

Johanna lay in a warm bed remembering that Christmas Eve. It had all been so long ago. An artist’s sketch of North Wind was framed on a bookshelf next to a small statue of Mary. For a moment she looked at it. Silly? Maybe. Maybe not. On her left hand was an antique wedding ring. I didn’t meet him in a bar.

It was in Colorado not many years ago that this story begins and ends. A young artist in stained glass opened a shop in a little town where many people came to ski the mountains that rise all about the town. He made beautiful pictures out of bits and pieces of colored glass which he cut and fitted together with pieces of lead and copper. Some of the pictures were of the nearby mountains and others were of beasts which no-one had ever seen: unicorns, griffins, and dragons. But most of his best stained glass were pictures of animals. There were lambs and lions, and cats and dogs too. There were also many pictures of birds.
Outside his shop the young man hung up a simple sign which said

John Bochinheimer’s
Stained Glass Emporium

Many people came to the shop and many of them bought his glass pictures. He sold a picture of a tiger in the jungle of Burma and another of a little goat eating grass. He sold many pictures of great eagles flying above the mountains, swooping down to catch fish from the river, or sitting proudly on a tree branch. But there was one picture he could not sell: the picture of a little blackbird standing on a rock and looking up into the sky. He did not know why no-one bought this pretty stained glass picture. It was a proud little bird with a yellow eye and glossy black feathers that made him stand out against the clear sky.
Day after day and year after year people would come to John’s studio and many would buy his glass pictures. Sometimes a child would look at the blackbird and ask for it, but then his mother would show him some other bird picture: a big ostrich, or a lovely flamingo standing proudly in the water, or a fine peacock spreading his plumage of many colors. Sometime a father would explain that blackbirds were pests and not nearly so pretty as the other glass pictures. Then the child would walk away from the little blackbird to look at the others.
After many years the artist thought that if the blackbird would not sell at the usual price he should get rid of it and use the space for another picture. He wrote a little sign that said:

This item only
50% off

John was about to paste the sign on the blackbird when he looked very carefully at the bird wondering why it never sold? He thought it a very fine blackbird with its long beautiful feathers and bright yellow eye. But the once proud bird did seem a little sad now. He realized he liked the poor bird more than any of the others. Perhaps that was because the blackbird had been in his shop so long and was a familiar old friend. It was something about the picture display that never changed no matter how many other pictures he made and sold. He decided to go home and think what else he might do instead of pasting the sign on his old friend. Perhaps he could hang it in his house or give it to a neighbor. Taking it up, he prepared to leave his shop for the day but as he was locking the door the artist happened to look up into the sky. A whole flock of blackbirds were flying over the town and the little glass bird seemed to see them as well. Then a thought came to the artist. John unlocked the door again and hurried to the basement of his shop where the studio where he made his glass pictures was. He soldered a brass frame behind the blackbird picture and on this he wrote:

Blackbird
Stained glass

John went outside again and hung up his new sign. The glass bird no longer seemed sad. He looked happy and proud as he watched people passing by and the blue sky above. Now every morning since that day, when the artist arrives at his shop he greets his old friend and the bird seems to greet him in return.

TERRI’S FIRST STORY – MARCUS AURELIUS

In the second century of the Christian era, the Empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor. The gentle but powerful influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury.
Edward Gibbon
Every moment think steadily as a Roman and a man to do what you have in hand with perfect and simple dignity, and with a feeling of affection, and of freedom, and justice; and give yourself relief from all other thoughts. Then you will indeed give yourself relief if you do every act of your life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy, and self-love, and discontent with the portion which has been given to you. You will see how few the things are, the which if a man lays hold of, he is able to live a life which flows in quiet, and is like the existence of the gods; for the gods will require nothing more from him who observes these things.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

The circle of the nations that fronted on the inland sea had competed and clashed and then fallen before the legions of Rome, to become, if not one people, then at least one empire, a nation of nations, combining the will of Rome. the arts of Greece, and the commerce of the East. Then in AD 167 the empire itself came under attack by barbarous horsemen from the north and its future lay in the hands of a frail saint turned general. The war lasted eleven years but Rome was victorious and Marcus Antonious Aurelius could bequeath to his nation another hundred years of life.
His veterans were encamped now, outside eternal Rome itself, at last at peace after years of cold and pestilence and hardship on the Danube. Cohort by cohort they began to form up. Each soldier shouldered his iron-braced shield and placed on his head a crown of victory. Each took in his right hand the tool of his trade a six-foot javelin. This he would stack outside the city to bear in its stead his awards for valor. With the troops would march musicians, priests, and sacrificial animals; carts of spoils, and captive slaves. The Imperator himself, their saint and the savior of the state would ride with his son in a gilded chariot.
“Tell me a story, Terri.”
“Sic transit gloria….Sic transit Gloria mundi.” Terri’s voice was low and her eyes were closed. She had never spoken in Latin before.
“Marcus, your troops await you. Even an emperor should not be late for his triumphal procession.”
“Triumph indeed! A joyful procession over dead bodies, How civilized we are! Friends that I will chat with no more, enemies who died for nothing…widows and orphans and the mutilated. ”
“Will you give yourself a piece of praise, husband. The whole city is glorifying the legions; and you, the greatest general of our age, don’t want to participate in your own parade.”
“Oh I do Faustina. But I shouldn’t. It is not fitting to glory in this dirty work though it must be done. Besides it’s all a lie. The crowd thinks I’m fearless, I’m not. Many times I’ve lain awake all night scared of the battle next day, or of someone killing me in my sleep. The ruler of the world has enemies as well as suppliants. Sometimes they’re the same people. I should not…but I fear the day when I shall be killed…The only good I may make of it all is that I’ve written my worries down. Perhaps it will console our son if he becomes emperor to know that his father, the philosopher, was frightened too.”
“After the triumph we can be alone again. Like in the old days before the Quadi war. I will dance for you then, like the slave girls you won’t let amuse you. You’ll like that. Admit it, my philosopher is a man too and I am pretty.” Faustina dropped onto the floor and swept her auburn hair against her husband’s sandled feet.
“Now stop that, Fau, or it will take hours to get your hair the way you want it again, and we don’t have hours.
“The triumph can wait a quarter hour.”
“All the City knows me as a very serious man. This will not be in my book.” He smiled.
“You are serious, my Lover, and a man. It is I who cannot be serious.”
“I know. You have stolen the hearts of the court…”
“You are my lord, Marcus. Courtiers are courtiers, and courtiers are toys. Yes, I tease them. They are fun, some of them. There is talk. Many people are jealous of my fortune in you.”
“Fools think how great it is to be the emperors wife?”
“No. Not just that. They are jealous because I have Marcus all night as I am jealous because they have Antonious all day.”
________________________

“Is that all? Terri. Do you hear more?”
“I want to draw the curtain.” Terri sat up and adjusted herself on the sofa. Her voice had lost it’s music and was flat now. “Besides, I think they’ve stopped talking.”
But Terri knew that there was more. Aurelius had awakened startled when an old friend, the legate Flavius Licinius stepped through the portal.
“Imperator!”
“I’m sorry, Flavius; I was dreaming of poor Fau. She should have lived to see this day. She’d have been in her element…The great lady and all those marching heroes.”
“No, Caesar. Faustina’s teasing was a delight to everyone. But she had only one hero.” The legate turned away to hide an unmanly blush and spoke very quietly. “You were not dreaming; she has returned to you on your day of triumph that you may fulfill your own wish to share it with her.”
“Thank you, friend. Then my happiness is complete.” With gratitude in his heart Marcus Aurelius, Pontifax Maximus of the whole Roman people, crossed the room to where, as in every Roman home, a small altar was kept to departed loved ones and the family gods.
_______________________________

“Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered.”
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus